The two yeshivas established by the religious kibbutz movement - one on Kibbutz Ein Tzurim in the south and the other on Kibbutz Ma'aleh Gilboa in the north - have been a source of pride for the movement and a symbol of its educational philosophy

But after 22 years, Yeshivat Ein Tzurim, which has only a few students left, is due to officially shut its doors at the end of the year - though it does have vague hopes of reopening a year later).

And while the Ma'aleh Gilboa yeshiva, founded 15 years ago, has no registration crisis (its most recent first-year class had 50 students), up to 40 percent of its students drop out of the demanding program every year.

Thus officials are girding for the possibility that the Ein Tzurim crisis will spread northward.

It took about a decade for the small north-Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamivtar to change its skin. Now, after most of its well-to-do secular households have been replaced with ultra-Orthodox families, the metamorphosis seems almost complete.

Unlike so many Jerusalem secular families in their situation, the Bar-Ons and their four children did not move to the coast, to the greater Tel Aviv area, although they had considered the possibility.

Instead they moved to Beit Hakerem - the neighborhood on Jerusalem's western side that so many secular residents have come to regard as the city's "last secular island," as Bar-On calls it.

She and other people living there say Beit Hakerem is the only thing keeping them in the capital, which is becoming increasingly ultra-Orthodox each year.

Discussions taking place in the Jewish Agency look set to dramatically change the Zionist movement.

Among the most distressed over these developments are the Reform and Conservative movements, who, as it is, have just single-digit representation among the 120-member Board of Governors.

With their Jewish Agency representation, the American streams work to provide funding to their sister movements in Israel, the Progressive and Masorti movements.

These funds, which amount to around $1.8m. annually to each movement out of a Jewish Agency budget of about $377m., are meant to offset the lack of government funds for non-Orthodox institutions in Israel.

"The movements are very worried," said one Jewish Agency Board of Governors member. "They can defend that funding only as long as they have a seat at the table."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has established an unprecedented high-level government task force charged with fundamentally altering the Israel-Diaspora relationship.

The new task force heralds a revolutionary change, officials in the Prime Minister's Office said, in that it will seek ways in which Israel can begin to invest in the Diaspora, rather than remaining merely the recipient of Diaspora aid.

The new initiative will only succeed if it is the beginning of a generation-long project that engages American Jews in building a shared transnational Jewish culture.

What is required on both sides is a massive investment in education about each other at all levels …and massive support for creating the artifacts of culture - literature, painting, sculpture, cinema.

Both communities must engage in prolific translation of each other's literature, comedy, scientific research and the like, far beyond the fractional and half-hearted translation that takes place today dictated only by market forces.

If we do not develop this shared culture, the centrifugal forces at work in the Jewish world will drive us farther apart.

Jewish Agency emissary in Johannesburg, Ofer Dahan, has conservatively predicted at least 300 immigrants from South Africa in 2008, compared to 178 last year and 157 the year before that. But, he believes the numbers could become spike even more.

Some 68% of the new immigrants who arrived in Jerusalem in the last four years came from western countries, data presented by the Immigration Absorption Ministry revealed Sunday evening.

According to the ministry's statistics, most of these new olim define themselves as religious. Some 25% of the immigrants from France define themselves as haredim, 65% as religious and about 10% as observant or secular.

Among those who emigrated from North America, 17% define themselves as haredim, 72% as religious, and 11% as secular.

Vaadas HaRabbonim LeKedushas HaShabbos met last week and decided to launch an open protest against the Alon Group, which heads chains like Dor Gaz, Blue Square, Shefa Shuk and more, in light of announcements by the executive board that it plans to open dozens of additional AMPM stores in Gush Dan and other parts of the country.

Since being purchased by David Weissman, chairman of the Alon Group, AMPM has opened new stores in Tel Aviv, Bat Yam, near Be'er Yaakov and elsewhere that operate 24 hours a day, including Shabbos and Jewish holidays.

A delegation of rabbonim and activists from Tel Aviv appeared before Vaadas HaRabbonim, warning them that AMPM stores continue to open, including one on Rechov Echad Ha'am near the Belz shul.

The delegation said that according to the mainstream press, local food markets banded together and announced that if the Alon Group is allowed to open on Shabbos, they would have no choice other than to open their doors as well.

Moshe Kaveh, president of Bar-Ilan, bemoaned the level of Jewish ignorance among Israeli youth and pointed out the critical gap filled by Bar-Ilan, the only Israeli university that requires students to take courses in Jewish-related studies, in a society increasingly split between religious and secular Jews.

Sixty-five percent of Bar-Ilan students are secular, but Kaveh asserted that advancing Judaism and democracy would continue to be a primary goal of the school.

Director of the Yeshivot Bnei Akiva organization Elchanan Glatt announced that Education Minister Yuli Tamir has established a new committee to find new ways of utilizing the funds of the budgetary clause entitled "strengthening Jewish Studies."

Without this clause, the number of hours that could be devoted to Talmud, Mishna, Bible and Jewish philosophy would be the same as in a normal public high school.

Tamir's purpose in establishing a committee to allocate the Jewish Studies funds differently, Glatt said, "is to enable these funds to be given not only to yeshivot, but to public secular schools as well.

The City of Jerusalem has authorized the transfer of millions of shekels in budget funding for exempt and recognized-but- unofficial institutions in the chareidi education system earmarked for major renovations, equipment purchases, educational programs and safety activities.

The new support criteria were drawn up following a court decision in a case against the City of Petach Tikva.

Following the ruling the Justice Ministry instructed local authorities to stop supporting exempt and recognized-but- unofficial institutions, which are not classified as full municipal institutions.

The recent move solved the problem by funding them as non-municipal institutions.

The neighborhood of Har Nof lies on Jerusalem's western boundaries. It has about 20,000 residents and is considered a stunning success, attracting the middle and upper classes, mostly from among the observant and ultra-Orthodox communities.

Three years ago, Jerusalem's Planning and Building Committee was presented with a plan that managed to create an uproar even among the Haredi residents of Har Nof - a group not known for keen awareness of its surroundings.

The moment we lay eyes on someone, before we get to know them at all, we are already drawing a box around them and sticking on all kinds of isolating labels: Ashkenazi, Sephardi, leftist, rightist, secular, observant or Orthodox.

And not just Orthodox: We subdivide them into haredi, dati, dati-leumi, dosi or hardal. We have neatly judged, packaged and labeled a stranger before we know the first thing about him.

Instead of judging others too quickly, we should be more open-minded and less clothes-minded.

[Ahava Katzin, 17] is part of a network of youth volunteers organized by Bema'aglei Tzedek, a group that seeks to bring a sense of Jewish values to social issues in Israel.

The organization brings together both secular and religious. Among their volunteer activists are students from religiously and politically conservative yeshivas to the furthest left-leaning youth movements.

Edited by Prof. Paula Hyman from Yale University and Prof. Dalia Ofer from Hebrew University.

A recently-released encyclopedia, the work of Moshe Shalvi and his wife, Israel Prize winner Prof. Alice Shalvi, tries to correct this injustice by giving Jewish women the attention they have been denied.

Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia is a wide-ranging information bank on noteworthy Jewish women and their relatives throughout history.

Ramat Gan Chief Rabbi Ya'acov Ariel said Tuesday that it is prohibited according to Jewish law to take part in an "egalitarian" or "partnership" minyan that permits women to read from the Torah or lead the congregation in prayer.

The cabinet canceled a planned deliberation of a bill calling for expanded authority for rabbinic courts because Labor ministers opposed to it asked to initiate renewed discussion on the idea.

Fearing a confrontation with coalition partner, the ultra-Orthodox Shas, a decision was made to cancel the discussion on the bill which was confirmed by the cabinet committee on legislation last week as being ready to be brought before the government.

Knesset Law Committee chairman Menahem Ben-Sasson: There are two problematic elements in the bill.

The first is that a couple which has drawn up a financial agreement will be able to include a provision stating that any disputes about the agreement after the divorce has been granted must be heard by a rabbinical court, on condition that both partners agree to it.

However, it is the other key element in the bill that creates a "revolution," continued Ben-Sasson. According to it, any two people who have a dispute regarding a financial matter may, if they both agree, and if at least one is Jewish, bring the matter to a rabbinical court, which will adjudicate in accordance with halachic law.

Following 60 years since the historic error of not separating religion from the state, the government is now expanding the authority of religion in the judiciary.

Instead of heading the opposite way and taking away from the rabbinical courts their monopoly in matters of marriage and divorce, the state is now granting them further decision making powers in civil matters.

Attorney Gilad Kariv of the Reform Movement argued that not only would it greatly expand the rabbinical courts' involvement in civil affairs, but there was no way to guarantee that litigants had in fact consented freely.

"For instance, if an employer drags his worker into a decision on a financial matter before the rabbinical court, is the worker in a position in which he can refuse his employer? We are creating a system here that threatens small claimants," Kariv argued.

Professor Michael Corinaldi, an expert in family law … charged that it essentially creates two parallel legal systems, one religious and one secular.

"Whoever does not want to see a Halakhic state founded here had better wake up right now, before it is too late," wrote Rivka Luvitch, of the…religious women's movement Kolekh (Your Voice).

Others complained that the requirement that both sides must agree to be judged before a rabbinical court is insufficient.

"Given the political social situation in Israel, who can guarantee that the 'consent' given by the weaker side will be a true consent?" asks another Kolekh member, Atty. Batya Cohen-Dror, writing in Ynet.

My suggestion: If you want to retain the bureaucratic as well as legal authority you still have, you need to institute systematic changes in the rabbinate's structure that will increase its accountability and transparency.

You must become a rabbinate that is sensitive to the people you lead.

In Shi'ite Islam, the clerics state that for their religious system to work, there must be some accountability to the people.

I never thought I would be suggesting that the Chief Rabbinate take lessons from the ayatollahs.

Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger will end his suspension and return next month to his position as both a member of the Supreme Rabbinical Court and a member of the committee that appoints religious court judges, the Justice Ministry decided yesterday.

In a move that ends a central dispute between the two largest Orthodox rabbinic organizations in the world, the Chief Rabbinate has agreed to recognize conversions performed by the Rabbinic Council of America

In a move that ends a central dispute between the two largest Orthodox rabbinic organizations in the world, the Chief Rabbinate has agreed to recognize conversions performed by the Rabbinic Council of America.

Rabbi Marc Angel, a former president of the RCA, who together with Rabbi Avi Weiss, head of the liberal Orthodox Chovevei Torah rabbinic seminary, plans to set up an alternative rabbinic organization called Rabbinic Fellowship, blamed the RCA for "capitulating" to pressure from the Chief Rabbinate.

In an e-mail message from New York, Angel said, "The Chief Rabbinate has taken narrow and extreme views on the question of conversion, and is now demanding that all rabbis comply with these 'standards.'

"The RCA has, very unfortunately, capitulated to the demands of the Chief Rabbinate. This not only undermines the authority of individual Orthodox rabbis, but creates a climate of stringency, rabbinic bureaucracy and authoritarianism."

Rabbi Seth Farber, head of ITIM, an organization that helps converts navigate the Israeli Rabbinate, voiced concern that American converts and their offspring would have difficulty proving their Jewishness if they were to immigrate to Israel.

"The overwhelming majority of American Orthodox converts over the years have not had their conversion certified by Schwartz. Children or grandchildren are going to wind up in Israel and their Jewishness will be questioned," he said.

The recent earthquake that was felt across Israel was the result of the "homosexual activity practiced in the country", Knesset Member Shlomo Benizri said Wednesday.

During a special Knesset session on Israel's preparedness for the possibility of another earthquake hitting the region, the Shas member said "the Gemara refers to earthquakes as disasters, but you are searching only for the practical solutions how to prevent and repair.

"But I know of another way to prevent earthquakes; the Gemara mentions a number of causes of earthquakes, one of which is homosexuality, which the Knesset legitimizes," Benizri said.

These religio-politicians are presenting a picture of Judaism and its place in the world which goes like this: the Talmud is the source of our values, and it provides us with the Truth. All we need to do is to quote it as it is - if you don't agree with it, the problem is all yours.

So blaming homosexuals for earthquakes is really about how we want to live our lives as moral and faithful human beings.

Using the excuse that it says so in the Talmud is no excuse: it represents a denial of the notion that Judaism grows and evolves through time and in culture.

The God in whom I believe wants me to grapple and grow, not to mock and shrink.

[It's] not only in the Knesset that there's a feeling that people can say whatever they want about gays and lesbians.

Two years ago, one of the heads of Yeshivat Har Etzion, Rabbi Yaakov Medan, published an article calling for a halt to the "abomination parade," as he referred to the World Pride parade that was supposed to take place in Jerusalem.

Medan compared the pride parade to the idolatrous infernos in the Hinnom Valley.

In the letter from December 25, [Chief Rabbi] Metzger wrote that “the chief rabbinate will consult with experts and invest considerable energy in finding additional appropriate practical solutions which will reduce the claims regarding cruelty to animals.”

“[The Chief Rabbinate] made a conceptual decision to do this, but the implementation is something different, something that is going to take a long time,” Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO of the Orthodox Union’s Kashrus Division said.

The spokesman for the Chief Rabbinate told The Jerusalem Post this week, “We plan to meet soon with importers and slaughterhouse owners who use the method in an attempt to reach an agreement.”

Following the lead of The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to animals, which has long protested against cruel “lift and bind” slaughter techniques practiced in many United States and South American slaughterhouses, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate has also decided to work to eliminate such techniques.

Non-Orthodox synagogue movements will be permitted to run their own ceremonies.

“This is much needed for us,” said Anat Hoffman, who directs the Reform movement’s Israel Religious Action Center.

“In Orthodoxy there is just one way of doing things, which does not suit our members, or many other Israelis.”

“We will be able to allow people to create the funerals they want. If people want Mozart instead of El Malei Rachamim,” she said, referring to the traditional mourning prayer, “that is fine.”

“We believe that everyone who feels and acts as a Jew should be buried as a Jew, and that everyone should be buried in the manner they want,” said Ze’ev Kunda, who runs the organization [Menucha Nechona].

Yossi Beilin, recently drew a parallel with the Orthodox monopoly over marriage, which leads some citizens to travel to nearby countries to wed under civil law. But, he noted, “secular Israelis can’t just go to Cyprus to be buried.”

The Union of Local Authorities petitioned the High Court of Justice on Thursday, asking it to cancel Education Ministry regulations requiring local authorities to participate in funding schools "whose status is not officially recognized."

Most such schools belong to the ultra-Orthodox education system. Education Minister Yuli Tamir recently signed the order, titled "the Nahari Regulations."

The petitioners say Tamir signed the regulations because of external considerations that "have to do more with coalition deals than with education."

The Education Ministry and Haredi education heads received a month extension in an attempt to reach an agreement on the requirement to teach core curriculum in Haredi secondary institutions.

According to petitioner Israel Religious Action Center Attorney Einat Hurvitz, the judges criticized the arrangement suggested by the Ministry and said that “the Ministry’s interpretation of the first ruling is not legitimate”.

The arrest last week of four hesder yeshiva soldiers who refused to participate in a lecture given by female IDF instructors has sparked a sharp reaction by a group of leading religious Zionist rabbis.

A spokesman for the soldiers' Har Bracha Yeshiva warned that should the military insist on ignoring the religious public's halachic needs, "many may decide to take more radical action and follow their haredi brethren in not joining the army at all."

The Tel Aviv Secular Yeshiva was established a year and half ago as a track for secular youth, combining Jewish and Zionist studies with social action and full army service.

The track was approved by the IDF Personnel head Elazar Stern, but it appears that in order to receive recognition as a “shiluv” track, they will need the approval of the Defense Minister in conjunction with the recommendation of the Hesder Yeshivot association.

Four months ago, “Bina” received a negative reply from the association. They are now asking the Defense Minister to make an independent decision; otherwise the students will not be able to return to the Yeshiva during their military service.

IDF Radio “Galei Tzahal” reports that brides intending to be married in Reform or Conservative weddings and wish to immerse themselves in mikvehs before the ceremony are asked to present an authorization from the Rabbinate. Without such confirmation, they cannot enter the mikvehs.

Attorney Einat Hurvitz from the Israel Religious Action Center:

“The mikvehs are public places, financed by public funds and maintained by religious councils that are funded by the public. Each and every (Jewish) woman that wishes to is entitled to the use of the mikveh.”

Religion and State in Israel

February 25, 2008 (Section 1) (continues in Section 2)

Editor – Joel Katz

Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.